(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) New York City is grappling with a shortage of lifeguards as summer approaches, prompting Mayor Eric Adams to propose a solution: hiring illegal aliens because they are “excellent swimmers.”
Adams unveiled this proposal during a press conference on Tuesday in response to an inquiry about the shortfall in lifeguard staffing ahead of Memorial Day, which marks the start of the season for public pools and beaches.
In response, Adams presented a hypothetical scenario. “Let me just take your imagination for a moment,” he told a reporter. “If we had a migrant and asylum seeker plan that states those jobs that we are in high demand, we could expedite.”
He then posed a rhetorical question: “How do we have a large body of people that are in our city and country that are excellent swimmers, and at the same time we need lifeguards?”
Mayor Adams says illegal aliens could be used to fill New York City’s lifeguard shortage because they are “excellent swimmers.” pic.twitter.com/IXDJNADnPY
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 14, 2024
Adams did not cite evidence to support his assertion that illegal immigrants are “excellent swimmers.” Despite this, he expressed frustration over the lack of amnesty preventing them from legally seeking employment in the United States.
Reiterating his proposed solution to address the lifeguard shortage, Adams continued, “We have all these eligible people waiting to work with the skills we need to fill the jobs, but we’re unable to allow them to work because bureaucracy is in the way. That just does not make sense.”
Many on Twitter mentioned that an underlying reason prompting Adams to consider hiring illegals as lifeguards could stem from the misconception that some may have crossed bodies of water to enter the U.S. illegally.
Yet, these assumptions have a troubling history of perpetuating derogatory stereotypes against Hispanic Americans—an issue frequently and ironically denounced by Democrats.
In the 1950s, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower initiated a large-scale operation aimed at deporting illegal aliens who had crossed the Rio Grande into the United States.
This deportation campaign, known as “Operation Wetback,” derived its name from the term “wetback,” (or “mojados” in Spanish) a derogatory label used at the time to refer to individuals who either swam or waded across the river to enter the U.S. illegally.
The term “wetback” is now recognized as derogatory in English.
Did this fool just gentrify “wetbacks” 😂🤣😂 https://t.co/a2yn22A2AW
— Patriot J (@PatriotJ) May 14, 2024
